Redefining
Perhaps it is an inevitable side effect of doing a lot of reading that I feel inspired to do a lot of writing (more and better writing, specifically).
I am fascinated by the way people tell their stories, or tell a story outside of themselves through the lens only they can access. I love looking for the ways we are all alike and yet different, and I can’t help but consider how it applies to music, my inner experience of striving to be a musician, and the outer experience of how that’s received by others.
Classical music, for all its beauty, has so many flaws. Many of them are held neatly in the category of how we teach classically trained musicians. The black hole of perfection and success only being attainable at the highest echelons of the discipline is one of the most dangerous things we are affected by as students and professionals. We can be so easily distracted by what we are supposed to want and how we are supposed to sound that our actual voice and desires get completely lost in the dark.
Many of us love music so much that we shut out the rest of the world while we are in pursuit of an ideal. It’s no wonder we can end up feeling betrayed by the time we realize we have been flying blind.
It can become second nature to question our worth and debate our value without realizing how it’s seeped into our whole existence. This might sound dramatic to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but musicians know the vortex that is created between our discipline and our personality. I’ve certainly experienced some of this myself, as I think all of us who are classically or traditionally trained have to varying degrees - a sense of aimlessness that comes from the hovering expectations of “the industry” that masquerade as the expectations we have for ourselves.
We’ve all had colleagues who have left music over the bitterness that comes from not reaching the peak (or sometimes from actually reaching it). Many of us have lost a tremendous amount of energy and joy along the way. So how do we avoid the bitter feeling that can come along with years of self-analyzing and measuring against an anonymous outside meter? What can we do as we start to emerge from the black hole that is “success in music” and try to come to terms with how our personal and unique life and career in music looks?
The answer - redefining what success means - is in danger of sounding clichéd, but I mean something much deeper than the standard “define success on your own terms” mantra. What I really mean, I think, is redefining your view of yourself from the root and understanding what would make you feel personally fulfilled.
Much of what keeps us stuck in life are distractions that make us comfortable ("I don’t have a successful music career because I’m not in a top five orchestra,” etc.). I need to point out here that comfortable can mean getting what we want or pretending that the world at large is the reason we don’t have what we want in order to avoid being challenged to work harder and be vulnerable. It’s possible, and easy, to stay on this second tier of music, the B-list, and blame the odds.
If the expectations for success and what we “want” are insurmountable, we never have to take responsibility for digging in to what would actually make us happy or what we are actually capable of achieving. We can ride a comfortable wave of slightly-better-than-mediocre and not feel very guilty, even if we’re not actually happy or meeting our potential.
For the purpose of this conversation, redefining is going inward. It means turning down all the noise about what makes us good musicians. Accepting our weaknesses while also being proud and vocal about our strengths. We’re all aware how many of us there are trying to find success in the relatively small pond that is music, but surely those who are fortunate enough to rise to the top are not the only ones with talent or we wouldn’t have to compete so much in the first place.
So if we’re not aiming for the A-list, what are we aiming for, The B-List?
Exactly. Because the idea that being on the B-list means anything about the quality of what we do is one of those noisy messages we need to shut out. We’re not aiming to land here by accident, but rather to stand confidently in ourselves.
It’s a lot of work to be any kind of musician, even a beginner. If you have any kind of musical ability, you’ve made tremendous leaps and bounds from where you started. If we are willing to put that much effort in, why shouldn’t we step up and own our capabilities?
The reality is that it’s intimidating to take ownership over our place in the world. I feel incredibly vulnerable writing about finding satisfaction in your abilities and being loud about your expertise, knowing that I suffer from the same fear of judgment that all musicians (and humans) have.
The reality, though, is that I am unique. I don’t mean this in an egotistical way - you are unique, too. Each of us brings something to the table. Another flutist who is exactly my age with a similar musical background will be a completely different performer, colleague, and teacher; not in a good or bad way, but simply a factual one.
What is responsible for creating the different types of musicians we become? Our individual perspective. Our sense of ourselves in the world.
And, what would it look like to embrace your life on The B-List? Looking inward, owning your skills, acknowledging the weaknesses you want to strengthen, putting in the work, and not buying into the idea that you are mediocre simply because you haven’t reached the “top.”
If we all continue climbing for the one peak our training presented as Mt. Everest we risk remaining blind to the beauty of the entire range and susceptible to the dangers and pitfalls brought on by too many hikers using one path.